This book caught my eye in a local bookstore. It is sort of outside my normal interests but I put it on my list for future reference and recently read it. I found it fascinating.
The books focuses on the Comanche plains Indians and on the life of Cynthia Ann Parker. Cynthia Ann was a white settler captured by the Comanches as a child who grew to fully adopt the life of the Indian and became known as "The White Squaw".
Two things really stood out to me:
1) According to the author, the Comanche tribe was probably the most lethal fighting force in the world when it came to mounted warfare.
2) The clash between Hispanic and later, white settlers, with the Indians was probably unavoidable. At the time settlers were engaging various Indian tribes, the settlers were about 4000 years ahead of the Indians in terms of technology and "civilization". Imagine if you were transported back in time to the year 1990 bc amongst a nomadic people - you would probably consider them fairly savage.
This is not to say that the Indians did not have many admiral qualities or that their way of life was devoid of anything valuable. It would also be a mistake to think they were any less intelligent than the settlers they faced - but the cultural gap between the clashing cultures was so wide and occurred at such a time (15th to 19th centuries) that warfare between the two was probably a given.
Two things really stood out to me:
1) According to the author, the Comanche tribe was probably the most lethal fighting force in the world when it came to mounted warfare.
2) The clash between Hispanic and later, white settlers, with the Indians was probably unavoidable. At the time settlers were engaging various Indian tribes, the settlers were about 4000 years ahead of the Indians in terms of technology and "civilization". Imagine if you were transported back in time to the year 1990 bc amongst a nomadic people - you would probably consider them fairly savage.
This is not to say that the Indians did not have many admiral qualities or that their way of life was devoid of anything valuable. It would also be a mistake to think they were any less intelligent than the settlers they faced - but the cultural gap between the clashing cultures was so wide and occurred at such a time (15th to 19th centuries) that warfare between the two was probably a given.
I found the book very honest about the shortcomings on all sides of the conflict and I feel like I came away with a whole new understanding of this portion of American history.
Most of the book takes place in Texas and references current landmarks and cities so anyone interested in Texas history would probably find this book interesting as well.
Highly recommended.
1 comment:
Being in Texas temporarily, and having lived in Montana, where remnants of several native tribes still exist, and feeling like my understanding of "white man/Indian" relations is piddly at best, I am very interested in this book. Thanks for mentioning it - I'll put it on my list for the library.
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